On October 24th, the Women Leading Government Cybersecurity Meetup will feature an exciting panel of experienced government cybersecurity professionals. ALL are welcome to attend this FREE event for networking, refreshments and fascinating insights and discussions on:

Today’s cybersecurity landscape in government and top priorities

Best practices in cybersecurity along with challenges and lessons learned

Future of cybersecurity in government and the cyber workforce

The evening will wrap up with a security demo along with Q&A.

This Meetup is presented in partnership with the Women in Technology D.C. Chapter of the International Association of Microsoft Channel Partners, a community of local professionals that believe in making it easier for women to imagine, begin and develop a career in IT. We’re very excited about this one, so check out the full agenda, speaker bios and RSVP here!

Calling all SharePoint users and Office 365 developers! AIS is hosting this month’s Meetup for the Triangle SharePoint User Group in Morrisville, North Carolina. The Meetup is this Thursday at AIS’ North Carolina office. There are still a few spots left so be sure to RVSP today.

About the Session:

In this session we’ll walk through building a client-side web part with the SharePoint framework. By using generic components, we can build web parts that can be reused across an entire organization or multiple clients. Time permitting, we will walk through several examples and possibly some framework extensions.

Event Agenda:

The TriSPUG Meetups are a fantastic way for developers, IT, and business users to learn, share, and grow their knowledge in Microsoft SharePoint and Office 365. Attendance is always free and informal. All interest levels and experience levels are welcome!

The President’s Management Agenda (PMA) called on all government agencies to accelerate their IT modernization efforts with a continued focus on security. So…now what?

At this month’s #AzureGov meetup, our panel of speakers discussed exactly how agencies can navigate the world of automated ATOs, revamped TIC compliance and beyond. And at the same time, fully realize the benefits of the cloud and achieve greater agility while strengthening their security posture.

One of the biggest roadblocks to government digital transformation is the lack of effective IT governance. Unresolved concerns including privacy, security and organizational silos that limit data sharing and analysis continue to pose hurdles for agencies.

Last night’s Azure Government Meetup in Washington, D.C. featured a stellar lineup of industry-leading experts who shared insights and strategies on achieving effective IT governance in areas including identity, portfolio and records management.

Last night’s #AzureGovMeetup challenged government agencies to view the cloud as more than just a technology and software choice, but also as a business strategy to create greater impact for employees and citizens. With its agility, speed and low cost, the cloud is the key to helping agencies test and innovate new solutions faster than ever before.

First up, we heard from Kevin Jackson, a globally-recognized cloud computing expert and founder/author of the award-winning blog, Cloud Musings. Kevin shared his experience and expertise in cloud innovation and the keys to developing a successful cloud business strategy.

Next up was a very special cloud innovation showcase featuring the latest cloud solutions currently advancing agency missions, including:

• AIS’ own Brett Goldsmith and Jim Mullennix presented on a high-profile application they recently helped move to production in Azure Gov.
• Carlton Reeves, Forward Deployed Solutions Leader, C3 IoT shared insights on how to innovate in the cloud using Azure.

For those who are familiar with Microsoft’s popular Dashboard in a Day workshops for Power BI, App in a Day (AIAD) is very similar. The program is an all-day training designed to accelerate attendees’ PowerApps, Microsoft Flow, and CDS for Apps experience. The comprehensive hands-on workshop is led by a certified Microsoft Partner, in this case, your friends at Applied Information Sciences.

The training provides practical experience in a full-day of instructor lead App creation workshops. You learn how to build custom apps that run on mobile devices with which you can share inside your organization securely.

The Air Force awarded AIS a contract to build out an Azure core infrastructure in the multi-cloud Common Computing Environment (CCE). The infrastructure is capable of supporting the migration of thousands of on-premises and legacy applications to the cloud. At the same time, the AIS team engaged in a parallel effort to migrate the “lead horse” application into the environment and celebrated the distinction of being the first company to successfully field a production application.

It was another packed house last night at our May #AzureGovMeetup in Washington, D.C.! Our topic was “Harnessing Cloud: Accelerate Your Mission Apps.” While I.T. modernization is top of mind for government agencies, many struggle to realize the full value of the modernization they can achieve bu moving the majority of their enterprise apps to the cloud and creating new citizen services.

And now, with the latest orders from the White House, there’s an even greater sense of urgency to overcome barriers and accelerate ways to boost cloud adoption and overhaul government IT systems to drive agility, cost savings, innovation and mission delivery. Last night’s experts (including AIS CTO and Microsoft MVP Vishwas Lele) covered a lot of ground, including:

A PaaS-first approach to mission apps

Achieving TIC compliance

Opportunities from recent government IT modernization and cloud initiatives

Calling all SharePoint users and Office 365 developers! Once again, we invite you to attend this month’s Meetup for the Triangle SharePoint User Group in Morrisville, North Carolina. The Meetup is TOMORROW and space in limited, so RSVP today to claim your spot.

About the Session:

Many traditional SharePoint developers have been caught off guard with the fast pace of changes to the SharePoint ecosystem in recent years. Whether it’s the rapid adoption of Office 365 or the growing investment in cloud-based infrastructure and services, it can all feel very foreign to anyone still using some of the same development approaches and tools first pioneered in SharePoint 2007.

This month’s session will break down traditional SharePoint solutions (such as features, webparts, workflows, event receivers, and timer jobs) and discuss how they translate to modern equivalents in Office 365 and the cloud. We’ll touch on popular topics like the role of SPFX, PowerApps, and Flow, and also other key Azure Services such as Logic Apps, Azure Functions, and Hybrid Data Connections.

You’ll gain an understanding for the growing role of new APIs such as Microsoft Graph, various nuances with authentication, and the importance of hybrid environments and accessing on-premises data. Along the way you’ll discover some of the tools, techniques, and approaches that will be invaluable as you decide what part of your toolbelt will be the most important to upgrade!

About the Speaker:

Josh Carlisle is a full stack software developer based out of Raleigh, North Carolina working as a Senior Solution Architect at B&R Business Solutions. He has 20 years of development experience from the early days of VB5, COM, ASP, and the birth of .Net to his first adventures with SharePoint development in 2004. His current focus is on architecting, designing, and developing solutions for Azure, Office 365, and SharePoint using the latest front end JavaScript frameworks such as Angular and React alongside service side solutions based on ASP.NET Core and Node.js. Josh also enjoys sharing is knowledge and experience at regional user groups and community events.

Come join your peers and fellow developers for a great session of networking and learning. As always, this event is free but space in limited. RSVP here!

If you’ve spent any time here at the AIS Blog, you already know how passionate we are about AI and Machine Learning. (We co-wrote the Playbook on it!) Many believe AI will also advance government; changing the speed, reliability, and ability for agencies to make more informed decisions and better deliver on their missions. The key to unlock the power of AI are the massive amounts of data that flood many agencies…but are often underutilized or even locked up due to lack of resources, knowledge of tools, and compliance.

Fortunately, cloud-based analytics capabilities allow this data to be turned into knowledge that can empower agencies to take advantage of AI capabilities that can help agencies make more informed decisions, drive efficiency and become more citizen friendly. Last night’s #AzureGovMeetup brought in a great lineup of industry experts to cover best practices and challenges for government with AI and analytics, top solutions and hands-on demos, and to contrast how the government is using AI today with their vision for the future.

This month’s Meetup was standing room only, so be sure to RSVP for the May Meetup ASAP! These free events are open to the public and offer great opportunities for both learning and networking. We hope to see you there!